CHAPTER FOUR

Lee lay with his eyes closed in that delicious state he sometimes felt before coming back from a very deep sleep—he didn’t know the time of year, day of the week, or hour of the day, nor even his own name, age, or social standing. He might have been an Einstein, or a single-cell amoeba, for all he knew. It didn’t really matter. And as the facts slowly drifted back to him one at a time—my name is Lee, I’m not an amoeba (or an Einstein), it’s summer, not winter—he’d end up trying to figure out the day of the week just by the quality of the air. Lee was convinced that each day of the week had its own specific smell, and if you trained yourself, you’d be able to tell the difference between a Sunday and a Thursday with no other device than your nose.

Without opening his eyes, he sniffed the air. Wednesday. Had to be. He sniffed again. Or maybe Friday? No, no, no, smelled more like a Sunday. For sure, Sunday. SUNDAY?!!!!! Shoot! Lee threw off the covers and swung his feet to the floor. Sunday. Father’s Day! His feet hit the empty bucket beside his bed (thankfully, it had remained empty all night) and he reached down and grabbed it on his way out. He tiptoed quickly to the kitchen—no point in waking Agnes; she’d only fuss over him and force him to eat a banana or something—opened the freezer, dumped a tray of ice cubes into the bucket, topped it up with cold water, then rummaged around in Agnes’s cupboards for as many clean sponges as he could find. Father’s Day. That meant only one thing to Lee—the day of the Manitoba Marathon.

Lee looked at the clock on the oven: 7:16 AM. The first runners would be appearing at the end of his street any minute now as they passed the eight kilometer mark. The blue lines marking the official marathon route had been painted down the middle of Harrow Street three days earlier. Every year, the appearance of those blue lines made him happy he didn’t live anywhere else. By now, traffic would be blocked off and rerouted, the pavement just waiting for the pounding of thousands of rubber-soled feet. Lee ran to the front door, threw his running shoes on without bothering to stick his heels in or lace up, and scuffed out the door. Half a millisecond later, he rushed back into the house, paused before a picture of a fish on the living room wall, and said to himself (he wasn’t partial to saying these kinds of things out loud), “Happy Father’s Day, Frankindad.” Satisfied, he ran back outside.

As he hurried down the sidewalk, the ice water from the bucket sloshed over the side and wet his legs, but Lee didn’t notice. Four or five of his neighbors were already sitting in lawn chairs down by the stop sign, sipping from thermal coffee mugs, one reading the morning paper.

“Anything yet?” he asked, out of breath.

“Lead runners should be by any minute,” said Mr. De Lucca, adjusting the earplug to his transistor radio. “Thought you were gonna miss it, for a second there.”

“You know me better than that, Mr. D.,” said Lee. He sat down on the curb and dumped the sponges into the cold water. He shaded his eyes with his hand and strained to see if there was any action happening a few blocks up. Nothing.

Mr. De Lucca watched Lee with an amused smile. “How come you don’t ever run yourself, kid?” he asked.

“Asthma.”

“Mmm, tough break,” said Mr. D. “Those sponges good and cold?”

But Lee didn’t answer. He saw the hint of a red flash in the distance. It would be the police escort driving a few meters ahead of the lead runners. Good. Lee dropped to the grassy boulevard and did a couple of push-ups (well, one push-up—he had about as much strength in his skinny arms as a stick-man with pneumonia) and some jumping jacks on the spot. Lee liked to feel his own heart pounding right along with the runners’ when they passed by.

“Get your butt out of the chair, Mr. D., they’re on their way.” Old Man D. struggled to get out of the lawn chair and Lee ran over and pulled him up by the hand. Mr. Skin ’n’ Bones De Lucca just about came rocketing out of his seat—“Whoa, little dogie!”

“Oops, sorry,” said Lee. He made sure Mr. De Lucca was steady on his feet before running back to the curbside. The others were putting their coffee mugs and newspapers down and ambling over to join him.

“There’s a fella come all the way from Kenya for this one,” said Mr. Penner. “They say he’s likely to win. Ran two hours, forty minutes in his last marathon.”

Lee could see them coming now. He wondered if it was just his imagination or if the sun was actually glinting off their sweat-drenched bodies like the twinkles on a sun-lit diamond.

As the police car drove slowly by, Lee felt an emotional lump rise in his throat (which made him feel like a total idiot). What, am I turning into Agnes or something? He gave a deep cough and pulled it together as the first runner came toward him with a look of powerful concentration. Lee liked to think he knew exactly what this guy was feeling.

“If he keeps up that pace, he’ll be dead by twenty kilometers,” said Mr. D. It was true; the runner was coming at them at quite a clip. Impossible to keep up that pace the whole forty-two kilometers. The curbside crowd began to clap and shout words of encouragement.

“Way to go, buddy!”

“Keep it up!”

“Only thirty-four kilometers to go!” shouted Mr. Dickson. His wife gave him a jab in the ribs.

Lee held up a dripping sponge. “Water?” he called. The runner put up his hand without stopping and caught the cold sponge in midair. He squeezed the water over his bald head, which looked like it could just about fry an egg right now. The runner tossed the used sponge over his shoulder without a thank-you, but that didn’t worry Lee. He counted to twelve before the next runner approached. His deep brown skin made Lee wonder if this was the man from Kenya.

“Thanks!” called the runner as he snagged a flying sponge on his way by. The next set of runners came in a clump of four. Mr. D. had to help throw sponges. He looked as pumped as Lee to be connecting with these swift heroes, if only for a second. By the time all the sponges were gone, the runners were coming in droves, and Lee’s throat was hoarse from all the hooting and hollering and “Way to go, man!”s.

Lee looked at his watch. The winner would be crossing the finish line at the university stadium in about two hours. Better get moving. “Agnes!” he hollered as he burst into the house, flinging the empty bucket on the counter. “I need bus fare. Do you have any?” Agnes slipper-shuffled out of her bedroom, gripping her housecoat close around her scrawny neck, squinting against the morning light. The first thing she did was put a hand to Lee’s forehead.

“Bus fare?!” said Agnes. “Hate to tell you this, Sonny, but you’re going nowhere today. You’re not well, and—”

“I’m fine!” said Lee, raking through the spare change pot on Agnes’s coffee table. “Honest, I’ve never felt better. Take a look at my tongue if you don’t believe me!” Agnes insisted you could tell a multitude of things about a person’s health just by reading their tongue. She was kind of weird that way.

“Put your tongue back in your mouth, Sonny,” she said, fanning the air. “I wouldn’t mind betting you haven’t brushed your teeth today.” Still, what she saw (or didn’t see) on his tongue must have been enough to assure her that he’d recovered sufficiently from his sunstroke. She shooed him away from the money pot and sorted through it herself, until she came up with the right change.

“Where you going at this hour, anyway?” she asked, dumping a huge mess of coins in his hand—Agnes had a thing about using up all her pennies.

“Marathon,” he said on his way out the door. “Tell Mom I’ll be home after lunch! Thanks, Ag!”

As he rushed down the street, he could hear her yelling from the doorstep, “At least take a banana with you!”

Never mind a banana, Lee wished he could take Santiago along with him. Be nice to have a little company on such a day. He looked over his shoulder at Rhonda’s house for a sec. Naa, he wasn’t that desperate. He kept walking. Then slowed. Then stopped. Ah, what the heck. He turned around and jogged toward her house. He took the front steps three at a time and pounded on the front door. No response. The inside door was open, so he pressed his nose against the screen and looked in. He could see the sun glinting off Mr. Ronaldson’s trophies lined up on the mantel—heavyweight boxer in his younger days. Lee was startled when a shadow passed over the trophies and he found himself staring at Mr. Ronaldson’s wide chest.

Rhonda’s dad opened the door, and Lee stepped inside. He was a little embarrassed to see that Mr. Ronaldson, holding an egg flipper, was wearing a pink gingham apron (which did nothing to tone down his look of annoyance). Mr. Ronaldson looked Lee over with an icy stare. Didn’t say a word. Lee figured it was up to him. “Rhonda home?” he asked, throwing a couple of fake punches to break the ice. Didn’t go over well. Lee thought Mr. Ronaldson might at least play along with the shadowboxing; maybe lift his own fists in a good-natured left-right. No way. The only thing Rhonda’s father did lift was one eyebrow, and Lee could see that he was totally unimpressed. Disgusted. Downright dangerous, even. Just as Lee was wondering if Mr. Ronaldson might actually punch him a good one in the face (maybe he’s mad I caught him in Mrs. Ronaldson’s apron?), the retired boxer broke out in a huge toothy grin and playfully roughhoused Lee to the ground.

“Had ya going there, didn’t I?” he chuckled. Lee suddenly felt as frail as Mr. De Lucca against Mr. Ronaldson’s massive bulk. Mr. Ronaldson laughed, and helped Lee up from the floor.

“Your mom ain’t been feeding you the Wheaties or something, kid?” He turned then and called up the stairs, “Ron, Beanpole’s here to see ya.”

Great, thought Lee, another name to add to the ever-growing string. Lee, Sonny, Daddy, Beanpole McGillicuddy. Maybe he’d make it into the world book of records one day, after all.

When Mr. Ronaldson returned to the kitchen, Lee took a quick look around the cluttered entranceway. That’ll do, he thought, as he pulled Rhonda’s Blue Jays baseball cap from under a heap of shoes in the corner. He quickly stuffed it in his back pocket. Rhonda came clomping down the stairs in unlaced high-tops and very badly cut off cutoffs—one leg nearly reaching her knee, the other at least three inches shorter (did she do that on purpose, or what?)—and a T-shirt that said, What are you lookin’ at? She was as uncombed and unkempt as ever, but with an added look of surprise—it wasn’t every day that Lee showed up on her doorstep; in fact, it was only the second time in four years. The first time was with a measuring cup in hand—Agnes had run out of yeast on bread-making day (not that you’d ever know she put yeast in those homemade bricks she called bread). Rhonda checked Lee’s hands. It appeared he was measuring-cup-less today. She gave her nose an upward swipe. “What’s up, Daddy?”

Lee took her cap from his back pocket and handed it to her. “You left this at Agnes’s the other day,” he fibbed. “Thought you might be needing it.”

“Oh … um, thanks,” she said.

“Well,” said Lee, halfway out the door, “I’d better run, or I’ll miss my bus.”

“Where you going?” she asked. By then he was halfway down the front steps.

“Marathon.”

“Hey,” she hollered after him, “can I go?”

Bingo, thought Lee. He faked a look of extreme hesitation. “Well,” he droned, “I guess you can come. But hurry! And bring the right change for the bus!” Rhonda ran back in the house. “And comb your hair for a change, why don’t ya?”